I’m pretty much a beginner, so please forgive me if I’m completely clueless. I’ll try to be clear…

I’m attempting to upload a new version of PHP 4 to my host via SSH through the terminal in Mac OS 10.3.9. The reason I’m doing it is to fulfill the PHP requirements for a shopping cart. The main feature that needs to be added is:
allow_url_fopen

I’ve created myself a user with SSH access already. Then I had success logging into my host through the terminal.

Two possibilities - either your terminal emulation isn’t correct, or everything is just fine and you’re just not a “vi-enabled” person. I strongly suspect the latter.

“vim” (or just plain “vi” for us old foagies) is a very simple text file editor that can be a bit challenging for the new user. You may wanna try “pico” instead of “vim”.

The trick here is to “copy” all of the text that appears in the box under the heading “The Script” on the wiki page and then “paste” it into the text editor, then modify that text to suit your domain and programmatic needs, then save that as a file on your Dreamhost disk space to be run as a program.

If you’re fumbling and can’t figure it out, I strongly suggest ya get yourself some assisstance from some unix/linux geek. Hell, ya can even send me a message and we can work up some time to talk ya through it on the phone or somesuch. The whole process couldn’t take more’n a few minutes.

Thank you so much for your help! I would be interested in speaking with you about it. I don’t know what I’m doing in this area at all. Of course, I would pay you for your time. What would you charge for a consultation on the phone?